Oh, no. He's going all wrong about it! Less manners, more direct line, please!
Sylvie licks her lips and glances back towards the table where the two boys are engaging in their own little cardhouse game, the rest of the family scattered like merry geese around a goose house. She thinks about the latest letter from Charles, equal parts encouraging and threatening her to return or he will have to take measure, although she doesn't know exactly what those measures may be. He knows people, he has contacts far into the English upperclasses, that she knows, she's seen the correspondences in his office, the beautiful writing on the front of envolopes to Mr. this and that... Eloisa has left, he's told her in his recognisable scrawl, no trace of her.
Because of you, he hasn't written, not exactly.
And now there's only Armand left, her nice, bright and ducky guy, but even Armand is no sell anymore. Sylvie wants to live true and she wants to live free, she is tired of always being the Gallard sister, rather than her own person. Her late parents' youngest child, rather than Sylvie. She wants to be just Sylvie to someone.
She would very much like to be just Sylvie to herself as well.
Looking up at Lord Melbourne, she purses her lips for a moment, pondering how to put so much thought, so much doubt and uncertainty in a single sentence, one statement that can hold all the pleasantries of this kind of light afternoon conversation, but all the depths of how she would like for them to speak to each other. Honestly, openly.
"They are not my plans, I assure you." Her voice is insistent, a little bit too much so and she looks down again, holding back on a childish urge to reach for the man's nearest hand, to grasp it in her own for just a moment, to cling to that much. To be Sylvie to someone. "My brother... He's urging me to return to Paris, because his plans are being stalled for as long as I am here. He's urging me... very strongly."
What wouldn't Maman and Papa have thought of you, acting like this, he wrote in the last short note. It was their business before it became my business. Doesn't that mean it's your business, too, Sylvie?
Doesn't that mean it's her responsibility, he's trying to say, none-too-politely. He could do to learn a bit from Lord Melbourne, really.
It's a good thing she doesn't grab him by the hand. Melbourne is not that tactile and would probably jump backwards, and by doing so possibly leave Sylvie embarrassed. Just her words alone make his initial amusement shift to a slight uneasiness. He isn't oblivious to the many hurdles and restrictions in women's lives but it's not something he actively thinks about, nor waits anyone to bring the issue to him.
Obviously he himself is privileged, and as a man, able to shape his own destiny no matter how much it is expected to follow in the footsteps of generations of Melbournes before him. His father had been a politician and so had his grandfather but had he wanted to choose another path, he could have. What he knows of women's choices (at least for upper class women) is that they are raised up to marry and have children. Many of them are accomplished in various tasks (in music or art, for example) but those things are secondary to being someone's wife and mother.
He doesn't look down on the nonconformists who choose to be independent, to live alone, or with lovers, and to dress in unconventional ways - and, to be honest, he considers the current women's fashion style with bob haircuts and short flapper dresses as revolutionary. But even though he's sympathetic to women who don't live according to the norm, he also knows how much trouble that can bring.
So when Sylvie mentions her brother and his wishes, it's not hard to understand where those thoughts are coming from: she doesn't want to follow the path laid out for her.
None of that is Melbourne's concern, really, but seeing her distress makes him willing to at least listen, even if he can't do anything else. It's odd that she would come to him about it but sometimes an outsider's point of view helps the best. Sometimes it is easiest to talk to a person who is not part of the equation. Even Emily, whom Melbourne thinks might be a better confidant in general, is someone Sylvie is relying for an upkeep.
"Would you like to sit down, miss? I could bring you a glass of... cherry? Or something else." He gestures towards a side table where his brother Frederick and Lord Cowper had just a moment ago played cards. That could be the needed cover so that no one else in the room interrupts immediately.
He pulls out the chair for her but doesn't sit down yet himself, waiting to know whether she wants a drink or not, but also because he hesitates about a certain question. He's not supposed to ask for her age but it's still relevant. "Perhaps you'll soon find yourself old enough to make up your own mind?"
[ooc: I should mention that since Queen Victoria is such a big part of who Melbourne is (in his canon), I have to keep her for our thread, too. I can't write her off, so although George V was the king during Sylvie's canon, in 1927-1929, the monarch here is Victoria, in her mid-twenties.]
Not like in France where the age of royalty and nobility is dead and gone, beheaded even, they made sure it would never rise again, didn't they, the revolutionaries? If Sylvie cared for politics and ideologies (only she doesn't), she would think it symbolic that by doing away with one Queen in France, they've stalled women's rights there for years and years, whereas in England, now ruled by another Queen, the English women have the vote and they have the opportunity to inherit on the same terms as men. Perhaps Marie Antoinette should have been allowed to stay at Versailles after all. Sylvie doesn't wonder.
She marvels.
Lord Melbourne doesn't question her implications, or her motives, or any of it. Instead he asks her whether she wishes to sit, pulling out a chair for her at the abandoned table, inviting more intimate conversation and Sylvie's fingers finally halt their fidgeting, instead she looks up at him, beaming brightly, all blue eyes and golden hair. "Thank you," she says, sitting down as primly as she can manage, which - if she's honest - isn't much in her current, slightly shaken state, her daydress at least not cutting at the knee like a flapper-style dress would do. She's not here to dance the Charleston with him. No, theirs is going to be another dance entirely.
She hopes.
"Just some water would be nice." She suppresses the second thank you, meeting his eyes when he asks the question, the completely logical thing to ask, because by all accounts, Sylvie is old enough to do as she pleases, except there is legislation and laws and money doesn't travel the straight way along those lines. And it isn't that she's afraid of losing her inheritance or her allowance, she isn't afraid of being poor, it's that she doesn't find it very fair that she should be!
So, she raises her chin a bit, lips pursing, her first show of angry defiance today, and tells him, "I'm twenty-three, Lord Melbourne. Nothing is mine until I'm thirty and even so." A brief pause. She chews her lip and shakes her head and her voice turns a little bit shrill, though she keeps it down, dutifully. "At my age, seven years are an eternity, I could as well be dead and gone by then!"
It isn't fair, she means. It isn't fair, is what she is really saying. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to.
What she is really saying, begging of him, is, don't make me.
He's glad of the opportunity to briefly turn his back to her, by going to get those drinks, as the 'I could as well be dead and gone' is such an emotional statement it almost puts a small smile on his lips again. Young people. They have the right to be dramatic and he would not wish her to get the impression he's making fun of her.
There are no servants in this room, the family preferring to be casual when it's just them, so Melbourne pours a brandy for himself and fills a nice crystal glass with water and a slice of lemon for her. After getting seated, he makes eye contact and nods.
"I was young once. I understand..." he says, trying to gain her confidence, even if his tone is not as convincing as he'd like it to be. In reality those years are long gone, and he's a bit of a cynic nowadays.
Then he picks up the cards, shuffles them and deals but not with the intention of playing anything. It's just for show, he's not even specifying what game they are supposed to play. Hopefully she gets it. Besides, the cards will give her nervous hands something to hold onto.
"And what would you do if you could do absolutely anything you desire? I mean, before you reach the required thirty years." A broad question that can be taken in many ways, depending on how open the other person wants to be.
The crystal glass filled with chilled water and a slice of lemon lands before her gently, and she watches his hand as he lets go of it, leaving it for her to take, thinking she could have painted it, the way the difference in temperature makes the surface of the glass mist slightly, little droplets, diamonds of perspiration. It's quite beautiful. His hand, in contrast, is large and decisive and he drinks brandy out of tumbler where she would have drunk champagne from a flute in another context than this. This isn't for partying, he is offering her another degree of confidentiality. At a big enough party, you'd have to yell to make yourself heard, where he doesn't raise his voice at all. He invites her whispering.
Then, his hands begin shuffling and dealing the cards left behind on the table. Stronger and bigger in comparison to the thin paper cards. She watches quietly as he divides the cards between them, not specifying what they're playing, how she might win, because it isn't about winning, it isn't about what game. They decide the game themselves, it's all just pretend.
It'd all be just pretend, if she could decide.
So, Sylvie picks up the cards and holds them gingerly between her hands, looking them over, oh, look, an ace there! Glancing up, meeting his eyes as he asks, presents her with every opportunity in the world, as if that is hers to have... Sylvie has never been as free as in this moment. She takes a deep breath, feeling tears press at the back of her eyes, making her blink repeatedly.
If she could do anything. Anything she desires.
"I would live true. I would live, free of my brother's plans. I would paint and I would be known on my own merit, not by my family name." Without hesitating for more than a second, she picks out the ace and puts it down on the table between them, face-up. "I wouldn't wait for my brother to disinherit me. I would disinherit my brother first, but that's not how these things work, is it?"
A small smile. She pushes the ace towards him with two, slim fingers. He could be it, Lord Melbourne. He could be the ace up her sleeve. If necessary, she'd rip the fabric to make him fit, she'd tear a big old hole.
[Oh, no, here comes a lecture, wrapped as nicely as possible.]
He is not playing the same game with her yet. Not at all. Being a practical man, he's not looking for hidden messages in the cards she places on the table. An ace is just an ace, it has nothing to do with him. If he had any reason to suspect she's sending signals, that particular card could be what she just said; her desire to be an ace in her own life, but seeing as an ace can also be the lowest number depending on a game, it might just as well show her fear of having no worth or value.
It's a three of diamonds he puts down and conveys nothing with it but no one should be fooled to think his mind isn't working sharper than that. He hears all she says. Everything. The moment takes him back a few years, to conversations with Victoria at the beginning of her reign. This is an uncannily similar situation, minus the fact that Sylvie is far less important a person. That is not meant as an insult. She is being compared to a monarch, after all, but even a monarch needs advice and Melbourne was there to give it then, and he's here to give it now. The memories of those golden days make him nearly add the 'Ma'am' in the conversation as if he's still addressing the queen. He opens his mouth, considers and catches himself in time.
"Miss Sylvie, you spoke so kindly of my sister's family a mere minutes ago. As I recall you wished to have something similar. With a family comes a family name. We can never escape it but we can still be individuals. Do you image anyone in the room feeling they aren't their own person because they are Melbournes or Cowpers?" His eyebrows go up as if in saying 'don't you agree?'
But then a flicker of uncertainty passes through his expression. He doesn't want to bring up old ghosts but even just briefly mentioning his own eperiences might help her see he does understand on a personl level, not just because he's trying to be "old and wise".
"Melbourne name... let's just say it hasn't always been my blessing. It has even been a source of embarrassment at times. Everyone struggles at least a little because of their family but we shouldn't get too caught up on that."
Suddenly remembering the glass is there and his mouth is dry, he takes a sip of the brandy. He's probably stepping over the boundaries of what she wants to hear, because yes, she's telling very clearly she wants to do her own thing and not because some man is telling her to do it.
"I am sorry to hear your relationship with your brother is a strained one but you need not run away from your name. You can be proud of it regardless and even because of it, and truly I am not defending him. I don't know the man or what he has done, but I can't believe the legacy you want to leave behind is someone who disinherited their brother. That is not living true."
Maybe she was a bit too harsh before, she thinks, as she listens to him -- not reprimanding her, but lecturing her, like her father would lecture her when she was a little girl and had spoken out of line, before the big boat took her father with it into the deep.
She looks at the older man, the ace lying quietly but loudly at the same time between them, and she thinks maybe it's a poor fit, in reality. Perhaps he is the type of king that her father never had time to become instead. Although, of course, England is ruled by a Queen now and she is not Lord Melbourne's wife. So, not-quite-king, then. Almost-king. Despite herself, she smiles a little; it's a welcome reminder, that before it ever was her brother's surname, it was the name of both her parents, Gallard. If she can take it from them, rather than from him, it might lead her onwards, it might be some freedom to consider.
Then, he puts down the three of diamonds, and it looks pretty next to the ace, complimentary colours, natural numbers. She'd have painted it as well, but remembers monsieur Dubois asking her whether she painted still lifes.
I paint people, she'd replied. That was before she knew, she wanted to paint true lives and that those two could be different things.
Her smile softening, she shakes her head, not to indicate no, but to lecture herself a little as well in extension of his gentle talking-to. Neither of them are out of line, really, both of them are in their perfect place here, like this, but her discomfort at Charles' continued pressuring of her shouldn't cast shadows over everything. The sun still shines, their mother would have said, Charles' and hers. Or there wouldn't be shade in the first place, shouldn't she know as an artist? Her shading has always been top-notch.
"You're right, Lord Melbourne," she tells him, smile fading slowly - it isn't said dutifully but honestly as she places a queen on top of his three of diamonds. She's a queen of hearts, this time, same colour. It matches. Sylvie swallows once, then charges onwards as is her way, she has run from France, from Charles, but when you run from something, it's really because you're running for something. Here is what she's running for, isn't it? "But you have to forgive me. What wouldn't you rid yourself of, to avoid being forced to marry someone who'll just serve as another bar in your cage?"
Wouldn't you rid yourself of your name, too, she means. Wouldn't you rid yourself of the nation that allows it to happen? She manages a wet laugh and even though she doesn't mean to, the tears finally brim over, it's not a hysteric display of emotion, or even a very evident one, it's her eyes swimming slightly, quietly, as stoicly as you can manage when you are in fact crying and on top of that, French to the bone.
The queen of hearts is so ill-fitting; he thinks Sylvie is far from a woman in love. Maybe that's why she gets rid of it while talking about the unwanted marriage her brother's machinations are pushing her into and in which she sees no love about to happen. It's very doubtful there's someone else she prefers, either, because if there were, surely she would have run to them, not crossed the English Channel to live among strangers. Unless the person she loves is unattainable, of course. Twice the pity in that case.
A king of hearts is just as ill-fitting yet that is the very thing Melbourne picks up from the orderly pile of the rest of the deck, hiding it among the cards in his hand. It'll hardly become useful in this game of pretend. When his eyes meet Sylvie's again, the forlorn look on her causes a missed beat on his heart-- well, mayhaps the previous thought was correct after all as he knows a thing or two about love, and the lack of it.
He leans back in the chair, pats the pocket of his waistcoat and finds what he's looking for. There's no need to make a spectacle of her teary eyes so when he places the next card on the table, it is discreetly accompanied with his handkerchief. It's nothing fancy, no silk or embroidered initials as he's over such fineries, but it's still a nice, soft cotton handkerchief with one row of hemstitching - though Melbourne would be hard-pressed to know the term.
"I don't know, to be honest. It's a difficult question. You see, freedom was never my calling. Duty to my homeland, on the other hand..." It had been a sore point with him and Victoria that he had been so devoted to serving this country. He most certainly would never rid himself of Britain.
"I would not wish you to marry out of obligation, nor for love alone, though I realise that idea is difficulf for the young to accept. Marriage is hard. There should always be more than one reason to enter such a contract."
[ooc: Fixing a sentence in previous tag: Do you imagine anyone in this room... etc.
A long moment passes in which he shuffles his cards and decides what to hand her, and when he makes his move, it's the king of hearts she gets - as well as his handkerchief, hemstitched and soft between her fingers when she picks it up discreetly, dabbing at her eyes with one hand freed from the cards, clutched in the other. The cotton is extremely soft, but without initials or any such finery that her brother favours, if nothing else because their father favoured it first and he walks in his footsteps, tall and proud.
Freedom wasn't his calling, Lord Melbourne informs her and in that, he reminds her of her brother with his business. He didn't serve his country well, like she's sure Lord Melbourne is, but he serves his own interests and maybe in some ways, that's the same thing. Their interests just differ.
And hers differ from the both of them. She wants her freedom, she wills the truth about herself! Maybe the man sitting opposite her, who is far older and more experienced in the matter than she could hope to be at twenty-three, is right insofar that one shouldn't marry just out of love or just out of obligation, but a mix of the two, yet she wants the choice to be hers. She wants to choose her own obligations. She wants to make those calls herself.
Hasn't he been? Wasn't that choice, at least, his to make? She wants to ask him, but dabs a couple of times more at her eyes before finding the courage, wetting her lips once before finally finding the English words and the bravery to ask, softly, "Why did you enter yours?"
Oh, but it's so personal. It's so intimate. But with the idea she has, forming more and more tangibly at the back of her mind, Sylvie thinks it's the way they must go under any circumstances.
She just hopes he is willing to tread the path with her.
Melbourne is excused from answering immediately as his niece Minny approaches the table, carrying her youngest son who is fast asleep and therefore listless, his head drooping on his mother's shoulder.
"Uncle... Sylvie... I came to say we're leaving. My boys are quite worn out from today's excitement." She glances back at her husband who has the older boy tucked against his side. He nods in their direction, giving his silent farewell from across the room.
"It was so good to see you," she continues with a smile and rests her hand briefly on Melbourne's arm, to which he reciprocates by placing his other hand on top of hers. "You too, Sylvie. Until next time, yes?"
"Of course. Your mother will make sure of that." Emily wasn't about to let him get cooped up at his London house for too long. There would be another invitation soon enough.
After Minny and her small family have taken their leave, it's Frances who sits in front of the piano now. As much she likes Sylvie, she's a bit more shy to show off her skills while the "sophisticated and worldly French lady" is in the room, so she plays little tunes quietly, without drawing attention to herself.
Meanwhile Melbourne turns his attention to Sylvie's question, though he's not keen to answer it. He doesn't know how much she already knows and whether she's trying deliberately to pull out the dirt... It's simple self-preservation on his part, he can't help but be wary. Still, he's fairly open about the whole thing, at least outwardly.
"She was beautiful and lively and I fell for her. She had a way with words. It was a good match on paper, too, some said." He wonders if he should have stressed Caroline's wit first, not her looks, but it was too late to change that now.
"Unfortunately love doesn't mean people are always good to each other."
Edited (Just added a small sentence to the paragraph starting 'Meanwhile...') 2024-03-29 20:00 (UTC)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Sylvie licks her lips and glances back towards the table where the two boys are engaging in their own little cardhouse game, the rest of the family scattered like merry geese around a goose house. She thinks about the latest letter from Charles, equal parts encouraging and threatening her to return or he will have to take measure, although she doesn't know exactly what those measures may be. He knows people, he has contacts far into the English upperclasses, that she knows, she's seen the correspondences in his office, the beautiful writing on the front of envolopes to Mr. this and that... Eloisa has left, he's told her in his recognisable scrawl, no trace of her.
Because of you, he hasn't written, not exactly.
And now there's only Armand left, her nice, bright and ducky guy, but even Armand is no sell anymore. Sylvie wants to live true and she wants to live free, she is tired of always being the Gallard sister, rather than her own person. Her late parents' youngest child, rather than Sylvie. She wants to be just Sylvie to someone.
She would very much like to be just Sylvie to herself as well.
Looking up at Lord Melbourne, she purses her lips for a moment, pondering how to put so much thought, so much doubt and uncertainty in a single sentence, one statement that can hold all the pleasantries of this kind of light afternoon conversation, but all the depths of how she would like for them to speak to each other. Honestly, openly.
"They are not my plans, I assure you." Her voice is insistent, a little bit too much so and she looks down again, holding back on a childish urge to reach for the man's nearest hand, to grasp it in her own for just a moment, to cling to that much. To be Sylvie to someone. "My brother... He's urging me to return to Paris, because his plans are being stalled for as long as I am here. He's urging me... very strongly."
What wouldn't Maman and Papa have thought of you, acting like this, he wrote in the last short note. It was their business before it became my business. Doesn't that mean it's your business, too, Sylvie?
Doesn't that mean it's her responsibility, he's trying to say, none-too-politely. He could do to learn a bit from Lord Melbourne, really.
no subject
Obviously he himself is privileged, and as a man, able to shape his own destiny no matter how much it is expected to follow in the footsteps of generations of Melbournes before him. His father had been a politician and so had his grandfather but had he wanted to choose another path, he could have. What he knows of women's choices (at least for upper class women) is that they are raised up to marry and have children. Many of them are accomplished in various tasks (in music or art, for example) but those things are secondary to being someone's wife and mother.
He doesn't look down on the nonconformists who choose to be independent, to live alone, or with lovers, and to dress in unconventional ways - and, to be honest, he considers the current women's fashion style with bob haircuts and short flapper dresses as revolutionary. But even though he's sympathetic to women who don't live according to the norm, he also knows how much trouble that can bring.
So when Sylvie mentions her brother and his wishes, it's not hard to understand where those thoughts are coming from: she doesn't want to follow the path laid out for her.
None of that is Melbourne's concern, really, but seeing her distress makes him willing to at least listen, even if he can't do anything else. It's odd that she would come to him about it but sometimes an outsider's point of view helps the best. Sometimes it is easiest to talk to a person who is not part of the equation. Even Emily, whom Melbourne thinks might be a better confidant in general, is someone Sylvie is relying for an upkeep.
"Would you like to sit down, miss? I could bring you a glass of... cherry? Or something else." He gestures towards a side table where his brother Frederick and Lord Cowper had just a moment ago played cards. That could be the needed cover so that no one else in the room interrupts immediately.
He pulls out the chair for her but doesn't sit down yet himself, waiting to know whether she wants a drink or not, but also because he hesitates about a certain question. He's not supposed to ask for her age but it's still relevant. "Perhaps you'll soon find yourself old enough to make up your own mind?"
[ooc: I should mention that since Queen Victoria is such a big part of who Melbourne is (in his canon), I have to keep her for our thread, too. I can't write her off, so although George V was the king during Sylvie's canon, in 1927-1929, the monarch here is Victoria, in her mid-twenties.]
no subject
Not like in France where the age of royalty and nobility is dead and gone, beheaded even, they made sure it would never rise again, didn't they, the revolutionaries? If Sylvie cared for politics and ideologies (only she doesn't), she would think it symbolic that by doing away with one Queen in France, they've stalled women's rights there for years and years, whereas in England, now ruled by another Queen, the English women have the vote and they have the opportunity to inherit on the same terms as men. Perhaps Marie Antoinette should have been allowed to stay at Versailles after all. Sylvie doesn't wonder.
She marvels.
Lord Melbourne doesn't question her implications, or her motives, or any of it. Instead he asks her whether she wishes to sit, pulling out a chair for her at the abandoned table, inviting more intimate conversation and Sylvie's fingers finally halt their fidgeting, instead she looks up at him, beaming brightly, all blue eyes and golden hair. "Thank you," she says, sitting down as primly as she can manage, which - if she's honest - isn't much in her current, slightly shaken state, her daydress at least not cutting at the knee like a flapper-style dress would do. She's not here to dance the Charleston with him. No, theirs is going to be another dance entirely.
She hopes.
"Just some water would be nice." She suppresses the second thank you, meeting his eyes when he asks the question, the completely logical thing to ask, because by all accounts, Sylvie is old enough to do as she pleases, except there is legislation and laws and money doesn't travel the straight way along those lines. And it isn't that she's afraid of losing her inheritance or her allowance, she isn't afraid of being poor, it's that she doesn't find it very fair that she should be!
So, she raises her chin a bit, lips pursing, her first show of angry defiance today, and tells him, "I'm twenty-three, Lord Melbourne. Nothing is mine until I'm thirty and even so." A brief pause. She chews her lip and shakes her head and her voice turns a little bit shrill, though she keeps it down, dutifully. "At my age, seven years are an eternity, I could as well be dead and gone by then!"
It isn't fair, she means. It isn't fair, is what she is really saying. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to.
What she is really saying, begging of him, is, don't make me.
no subject
There are no servants in this room, the family preferring to be casual when it's just them, so Melbourne pours a brandy for himself and fills a nice crystal glass with water and a slice of lemon for her. After getting seated, he makes eye contact and nods.
"I was young once. I understand..." he says, trying to gain her confidence, even if his tone is not as convincing as he'd like it to be. In reality those years are long gone, and he's a bit of a cynic nowadays.
Then he picks up the cards, shuffles them and deals but not with the intention of playing anything. It's just for show, he's not even specifying what game they are supposed to play. Hopefully she gets it. Besides, the cards will give her nervous hands something to hold onto.
"And what would you do if you could do absolutely anything you desire? I mean, before you reach the required thirty years." A broad question that can be taken in many ways, depending on how open the other person wants to be.
no subject
Then, his hands begin shuffling and dealing the cards left behind on the table. Stronger and bigger in comparison to the thin paper cards. She watches quietly as he divides the cards between them, not specifying what they're playing, how she might win, because it isn't about winning, it isn't about what game. They decide the game themselves, it's all just pretend.
It'd all be just pretend, if she could decide.
So, Sylvie picks up the cards and holds them gingerly between her hands, looking them over, oh, look, an ace there! Glancing up, meeting his eyes as he asks, presents her with every opportunity in the world, as if that is hers to have... Sylvie has never been as free as in this moment. She takes a deep breath, feeling tears press at the back of her eyes, making her blink repeatedly.
If she could do anything. Anything she desires.
"I would live true. I would live, free of my brother's plans. I would paint and I would be known on my own merit, not by my family name." Without hesitating for more than a second, she picks out the ace and puts it down on the table between them, face-up. "I wouldn't wait for my brother to disinherit me. I would disinherit my brother first, but that's not how these things work, is it?"
A small smile. She pushes the ace towards him with two, slim fingers. He could be it, Lord Melbourne. He could be the ace up her sleeve. If necessary, she'd rip the fabric to make him fit, she'd tear a big old hole.
Crawl out into freedom that way.
no subject
He is not playing the same game with her yet. Not at all. Being a practical man, he's not looking for hidden messages in the cards she places on the table. An ace is just an ace, it has nothing to do with him. If he had any reason to suspect she's sending signals, that particular card could be what she just said; her desire to be an ace in her own life, but seeing as an ace can also be the lowest number depending on a game, it might just as well show her fear of having no worth or value.
It's a three of diamonds he puts down and conveys nothing with it but no one should be fooled to think his mind isn't working sharper than that. He hears all she says. Everything. The moment takes him back a few years, to conversations with Victoria at the beginning of her reign. This is an uncannily similar situation, minus the fact that Sylvie is far less important a person. That is not meant as an insult. She is being compared to a monarch, after all, but even a monarch needs advice and Melbourne was there to give it then, and he's here to give it now. The memories of those golden days make him nearly add the 'Ma'am' in the conversation as if he's still addressing the queen. He opens his mouth, considers and catches himself in time.
"Miss Sylvie, you spoke so kindly of my sister's family a mere minutes ago. As I recall you wished to have something similar. With a family comes a family name. We can never escape it but we can still be individuals. Do you image anyone in the room feeling they aren't their own person because they are Melbournes or Cowpers?" His eyebrows go up as if in saying 'don't you agree?'
But then a flicker of uncertainty passes through his expression. He doesn't want to bring up old ghosts but even just briefly mentioning his own eperiences might help her see he does understand on a personl level, not just because he's trying to be "old and wise".
"Melbourne name... let's just say it hasn't always been my blessing. It has even been a source of embarrassment at times. Everyone struggles at least a little because of their family but we shouldn't get too caught up on that."
Suddenly remembering the glass is there and his mouth is dry, he takes a sip of the brandy. He's probably stepping over the boundaries of what she wants to hear, because yes, she's telling very clearly she wants to do her own thing and not because some man is telling her to do it.
"I am sorry to hear your relationship with your brother is a strained one but you need not run away from your name. You can be proud of it regardless and even because of it, and truly I am not defending him. I don't know the man or what he has done, but I can't believe the legacy you want to leave behind is someone who disinherited their brother. That is not living true."
no subject
She looks at the older man, the ace lying quietly but loudly at the same time between them, and she thinks maybe it's a poor fit, in reality. Perhaps he is the type of king that her father never had time to become instead. Although, of course, England is ruled by a Queen now and she is not Lord Melbourne's wife. So, not-quite-king, then. Almost-king. Despite herself, she smiles a little; it's a welcome reminder, that before it ever was her brother's surname, it was the name of both her parents, Gallard. If she can take it from them, rather than from him, it might lead her onwards, it might be some freedom to consider.
Then, he puts down the three of diamonds, and it looks pretty next to the ace, complimentary colours, natural numbers. She'd have painted it as well, but remembers monsieur Dubois asking her whether she painted still lifes.
I paint people, she'd replied. That was before she knew, she wanted to paint true lives and that those two could be different things.
Her smile softening, she shakes her head, not to indicate no, but to lecture herself a little as well in extension of his gentle talking-to. Neither of them are out of line, really, both of them are in their perfect place here, like this, but her discomfort at Charles' continued pressuring of her shouldn't cast shadows over everything. The sun still shines, their mother would have said, Charles' and hers. Or there wouldn't be shade in the first place, shouldn't she know as an artist? Her shading has always been top-notch.
"You're right, Lord Melbourne," she tells him, smile fading slowly - it isn't said dutifully but honestly as she places a queen on top of his three of diamonds. She's a queen of hearts, this time, same colour. It matches. Sylvie swallows once, then charges onwards as is her way, she has run from France, from Charles, but when you run from something, it's really because you're running for something. Here is what she's running for, isn't it? "But you have to forgive me. What wouldn't you rid yourself of, to avoid being forced to marry someone who'll just serve as another bar in your cage?"
Wouldn't you rid yourself of your name, too, she means. Wouldn't you rid yourself of the nation that allows it to happen? She manages a wet laugh and even though she doesn't mean to, the tears finally brim over, it's not a hysteric display of emotion, or even a very evident one, it's her eyes swimming slightly, quietly, as stoicly as you can manage when you are in fact crying and on top of that, French to the bone.
no subject
A king of hearts is just as ill-fitting yet that is the very thing Melbourne picks up from the orderly pile of the rest of the deck, hiding it among the cards in his hand. It'll hardly become useful in this game of pretend. When his eyes meet Sylvie's again, the forlorn look on her causes a missed beat on his heart-- well, mayhaps the previous thought was correct after all as he knows a thing or two about love, and the lack of it.
He leans back in the chair, pats the pocket of his waistcoat and finds what he's looking for. There's no need to make a spectacle of her teary eyes so when he places the next card on the table, it is discreetly accompanied with his handkerchief. It's nothing fancy, no silk or embroidered initials as he's over such fineries, but it's still a nice, soft cotton handkerchief with one row of hemstitching - though Melbourne would be hard-pressed to know the term.
"I don't know, to be honest. It's a difficult question. You see, freedom was never my calling. Duty to my homeland, on the other hand..." It had been a sore point with him and Victoria that he had been so devoted to serving this country. He most certainly would never rid himself of Britain.
"I would not wish you to marry out of obligation, nor for love alone, though I realise that idea is difficulf for the young to accept. Marriage is hard. There should always be more than one reason to enter such a contract."
[ooc: Fixing a sentence in previous tag: Do you imagine anyone in this room... etc.
Also you can check wikipedia if you aren't already familiar with the term hemstitching:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemstitch ]
no subject
Freedom wasn't his calling, Lord Melbourne informs her and in that, he reminds her of her brother with his business. He didn't serve his country well, like she's sure Lord Melbourne is, but he serves his own interests and maybe in some ways, that's the same thing. Their interests just differ.
And hers differ from the both of them. She wants her freedom, she wills the truth about herself! Maybe the man sitting opposite her, who is far older and more experienced in the matter than she could hope to be at twenty-three, is right insofar that one shouldn't marry just out of love or just out of obligation, but a mix of the two, yet she wants the choice to be hers. She wants to choose her own obligations. She wants to make those calls herself.
Hasn't he been? Wasn't that choice, at least, his to make? She wants to ask him, but dabs a couple of times more at her eyes before finding the courage, wetting her lips once before finally finding the English words and the bravery to ask, softly, "Why did you enter yours?"
Oh, but it's so personal. It's so intimate. But with the idea she has, forming more and more tangibly at the back of her mind, Sylvie thinks it's the way they must go under any circumstances.
She just hopes he is willing to tread the path with her.
no subject
"Uncle... Sylvie... I came to say we're leaving. My boys are quite worn out from today's excitement." She glances back at her husband who has the older boy tucked against his side. He nods in their direction, giving his silent farewell from across the room.
"It was so good to see you," she continues with a smile and rests her hand briefly on Melbourne's arm, to which he reciprocates by placing his other hand on top of hers. "You too, Sylvie. Until next time, yes?"
"Of course. Your mother will make sure of that." Emily wasn't about to let him get cooped up at his London house for too long. There would be another invitation soon enough.
After Minny and her small family have taken their leave, it's Frances who sits in front of the piano now. As much she likes Sylvie, she's a bit more shy to show off her skills while the "sophisticated and worldly French lady" is in the room, so she plays little tunes quietly, without drawing attention to herself.
Meanwhile Melbourne turns his attention to Sylvie's question, though he's not keen to answer it. He doesn't know how much she already knows and whether she's trying deliberately to pull out the dirt... It's simple self-preservation on his part, he can't help but be wary. Still, he's fairly open about the whole thing, at least outwardly.
"She was beautiful and lively and I fell for her. She had a way with words. It was a good match on paper, too, some said." He wonders if he should have stressed Caroline's wit first, not her looks, but it was too late to change that now.
"Unfortunately love doesn't mean people are always good to each other."